The Power and the Glory
by Laryna6
Summary: What if Luke realized Asch's significance on the Tartarus? What did his birth score mean by saying Luke inherited Lorelei's power? There's a way for everyone to have a happy ending. Everyone Luke cares about, at least. AschLuke, eerily happy darkfic
1. Who are you?

_Disclaimer: I don't own Tales of the Abyss: Namco and other legal copyright etc. holders do. No infringement intended or money made, please don't sue._

_This is a fic that plays around with the perfect isofon phenomenon and the whole stuff with their connection to Lorelei and so on and so forth to cause Luke and Asch to kiss and make up._

_And then watches the fallout. _

_Um… on the one hand, I don't want to spoil the ending, but on the other I feel obligated to give you some warning that although there is no character death in this fic there will be a lot of other death. It's a happy ending. Happier than the game's. For the major characters. Think about what that implies, okay? _

_-_

Everything stopped.

Even the fact that he'd just killed someone became unimportant. There were other people here, alive, and one of them was pointing a weapon at him and they barely registered except as scenery, possible obstacles.

"I know you." That was what mattered, and he realized that nothing else had ever mattered before. His life had been pointless, day after day, waiting for something that never came until he'd accepted that maybe there wasn't a purpose to life. Maybe this was what everyone else went though.

But his life did have meaning, and he'd found it.

"Asch, stop!"

The other person called _him_ Asch, but, "That's not your name," Luke said as the sword pressed against him, drawing a bit of blood but that also simply didn't matter. "Who are you?" He reached out in wonder: he had to know.

_He_ growled (angry? Why?) and the sword started to cut deeper. Luke flinched but couldn't pull away: he hated that the pain had made him flinch and close his eyes. "It hurts… this isn't a dream." That brought a smile to his lips, replacing the o of wonder.

"Stop! Our orders were to keep him alive!'

The other person thought _he_ would kill him? "Do you want me dead?" He asked, head tilting in question.

"What?" _He _seemed to think Luke was insane.

"I would die. If you wanted me to, I would. Who are you? Why do you matter so much?" He was able to touch _him_, just his clothing, but it was solid and real as the sword. His eyes left _his _to look at his hand (he didn't realize until afterwards, treasuring the memory, that his fingers looked slightly wrong), and that seemed to be a mistake.

_He _withdrew the sword and swung.

The next think Luke knew he was in a cell with, yes, their names were Tear and Jade. "Do you know who that was?"

"God-general Asch the Bloody." Jade seemed distressed for some reason. It wasn't like him.

"That's not his name, and what do you know!" Luke sprang for him, but found he staggered partway.

"Be careful Luke, they didn't heal you fully. I just started when you woke up. Come on, lie back down." Tear guided him back, forcing him to lie down. He let her, he had to be healed so he could find him.

"I have some theories as to why he looked like you, but they wouldn't explain your reaction. Unless…"

"Tell me."

"I need more information. I don't want to distress you with unfounded speculation."

"I'm already distressed. He looked like me? I guess he did, huh." Luke lay back, momentarily distracted by reliving the memory. The feeling of Tear's healing arte reminded him for some reason. Wait, he felt Tear's arte? It wasn't just the feeling of being healed, it was a… a feeling he couldn't describe. It was right somehow, and that was the only way he could think of to say it.

"You didn't notice?" Tear asked when she was done.

"No. I wasn't… there was something about him, and I was paying attention to that instead of anything else. It felt a bit like your arte, only… more. He was… Like me," Luke realized. "Only I don't know why I felt like that. I didn't even really notice anything that wasn't important to that. I would have thought I was dreaming, everything seemed so unreal, if he hadn't stabbed me." He seemed to be good as new. "Jade. Who is he?"

"He felt like Tear's arte? You sensed his fonons?" Jade was just guessing, and Luke sighed.

"I don't know why I expected_ you_ to be helpful," he muttered. "So how do we get out of here?"

There were other feelings, he soon learned, but they all felt incomplete. Even Tear's artes felt impure somehow, although they were better than nothing. "Oh healing power, First Aid!" Luke frowned as he felt it affect Jade. Yes, it was better than nothing, and better than having it cast on him, but it wasn't enough.

Both of them were staring at him. "What?"

"Nothing, I mean, it's not surprising, since you're a seventh fonist." Tear just shrugged. She shouldn't be startled but she was. Luke was acting _strange._

Luke thought that Tear was acting strange too, but it wasn't worth asking about. "Come on." He headed right for the next monsters he saw. Her other one was trickier, the currents were strange as though to keep people from copying it, but it felt more right.

Oh yes, it felt very right. The battle over, he fell to his knees, almost shivering with delight. Oh, that felt good!

Tear's jaw had dropped. "Luke, how did you do that? That was one of Yulia's fonic hymns, do you even know what the words mean?"

"No, I just did exactly what you did." He stretched and got back to his feet with a smile. "I think I figured it out. Is this what people mean when they say that something makes them feel alive?"

"Luke, are you feeling alright?"

"I've never felt better. No, I've never felt this good before. Except when he was here. I'm going to find him," Luke promised himself. "I'm going to find out why he doesn't like me and fix it and then I'll always feel like this." He smiled to himself. "Come on, let's get going!"

Guy was here? Guy was his friend, but seeing him made his heart sink.

"Luke, what's wrong?"

"It's…" Luke backed away. "I can't go back home. I have to find him," he pleaded.

"Find who?"

"_Him_. He looks like me and he feels like me. That fonon stuff people talk about, that's it."

"His fonons feel like yours?" Jade again.

"Yes, now that I've figured out what fonons are. He felt the same as me. He… I didn't feel alone."

"What do you mean, alone?" Guy seemed puzzled, but there was a hint that if anyone but Luke had said that he would have drawn the conclusion that Guy, a servant, didn't qualify as company when he was the only person who was ever _with_ Luke but Master Van.

"It's not… You're my friend, but… This was something else."

"His fonons are the same as yours?" Jade asked again.

Luke closed his eyes, focusing on the memory. "Not exactly. Mine are all exactly the same. His are the… first through sixth fonons," he was pretty sure he got that right, "plus some like mine, but the amounts add up and if you mix them together they feel the same."

"You're entirely composed of the seventh fonon?" _Now_ Jade knew what was going on, and he didn't seem to like it.

"The one in those artes. Yeah." Without any concern for Jade's feelings Luke pushed him for answers. "You know what's going on! Tell me!"

"Luke, have you heard of… Never mind, you wouldn't have. There's a process known as fomicry where a replica is made of another person that is identical except they lack their memories and are entirely composed of seventh fonons. If…"

"When Malkuth kidnapped me. I don't remember anything before then."

"Wait," Guy asked, looking between him and Jade. "Are you saying Luke isn't Luke? That's a pretty serious allegation."

"He's right. I knew his name wasn't Asch. It's Luke." Luke frowned. "So what's my name, then?" He looked down at his hands, flexing them. "If everyone mistook me for him, no wonder he's angry with me."

"Luke…" Ion came up to him. "It's not your fault."

"Calm down." Guy forced Luke to look at him. "You're you. That's all that matters."

"It's not. It never was. But it will be." Luke straightened up, resolute. "I just have to find him."

-

When they got to St. Binah Luke made Guy sneak out of the inn with him. "Guy…"

"I get it…" Guy sighed. "Van was the one who brought you back. We're going to meet up with him in Kaitzur, so let's talk to him there before you do anything silly like run away."

"Master Van, oh, right." He was going to be in Kaitzur. "He's the commander of the six god-generals, right? So h_e_ is with Master Van?" Luke sighed with relief. "He'll know what's going on. He'll help me apologize so _he_ won't be mad at me anymore."

"I… Don't know about that."

"What?"

"Nothing. Let's get some practice in, okay? I can't let you let your strike artes get rusty just because you're a fonist now."

Luke smiled. "Thanks, Guy."

"What?" Guy stepped back a pace in shock.

"What?"

"You said thanks."

"What? I say thanks… When people do something special. That's how you do it, right?"

"Something special?"

"You're helping me train and you're going to help me find him. So, thanks Guy."

Guy was silent for a strangely long time. "You're welcome," he said quickly, in the instant Luke opened his mouth to ask what was wrong.

-

"Master Van!" The trip had been disappointing. Tear had learned another fonic hymn, finally, and he'd learned it from her, but Arietta hadn't answered any of his questions.

"Luke! It's good to see you."

"Master Van, you know him, right? He works for you? Where is he?" Luke's excited questions poured out, and he didn't notice Van's eyes turning dark.

"Let's talk about this in private."

"Vandesdelca!" Tear's knives were out.

"Tear, no!" Luke stared her down. "I don't know why you two are fighting, but Master Van wouldn't do anything wrong. If you're his enemy then you're my enemy."

Tear grimaced but put the daggers away. "I want to hear how you explain this."

Guy spoke next, ruefully. "Well, I am responsible for him." Perhaps Jade was the only one who noticed that Van had looked to Guy for support.

"Luke is my friend." Ion wasn't backing down either, and Van's slight reaction to this deepened Jade's frown.

That frown vanished when he spoke. "And since I am the creator of fomicry and Luke's disappearance was blamed on Malkuth I'm afraid I also have an interest in the matter."

"No."

"What?" Tear exclaimed.

"He's my teacher, and he said he wants to talk to me in private. Tear, you're his enemy, and Jade, you're from Malkuth. Ion, Guy, you're my friends, but if this is something that Master Van thinks I need to hear first… There are some things that are just private." Luke wasn't budging. Turning back to his teacher, he pleaded, "Master Van, can you tell me now?"

Van sighed. "Certainly. I had hoped to wait a little longer, but if it can't be helped then it can't be helped. Let's go to the back room where we can talk privately."

When the door was safely shut Luke sat down and stared down at the floor. "I'm not angry, Master Van. I know you had a good reason, and it was hard enough when I didn't know he was out there. Now that I know he is I miss him. It feels like I'm empty inside, I miss him so much." His arms wrapped around himself and he would have had to fight to hold back tears if Master Van hadn't put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Luke. There is a reason. What do you know about the Score?"

"Not a lot."

"It's not your fault. Everyone was working to keep you ignorant of what it really meant. The Score said that Luke fon Fabre would die, in this very year, sacrificed so that Kimlasca could win a war against Malkuth. Your father and uncle raised him, and then you, knowing this."

"That… explains a lot. So you made me so that he could live?"

"…Yes. I'm sorry, Luke. I've grown to care for you too, but the Score is absolute. But perhaps, with the power of hyperresonance you and he share, it could be overturned. I wanted to save him so that others would no longer have to die like he was destined to and my parents did."

Luke stood up and hugged him. "I'm not angry. I think I'm happy."

"Happy?"

"I always felt like a stranger. That I was a failure because I couldn't do even basic things. That I didn't have a purpose. But there's a reason for that, and I do have a purpose. I'm very happy," Luke realized. "Thank you."

"Are you sure?"

"If I was born to save him, and to help you fight the Score that tried to kill him and took your parents away, Master Van, then that's a good reason to be. Did you make me?" He looked up hopefully.

"Not personally, but I had you made."

"Oh." Luke was a little disappointed. "It… Father was never my father. It would be nice if you were. But being my teacher is more than enough. You trained me, you visited me, even though you knew it wouldn't be used. I always looked forward to seeing you, Master Van."

"Luke." The hand that had been removed, startled, when Luke took the liberty of hugging him returned to his shoulder and Van smiled at him.

Luke smiled back, but then it dimmed. "_I want to see him again_." The force of that need! "But… I don't want him to be sad. If I die and he still hates me then he won't be."

"He's strong, Luke. I'll find a way for you to meet him."

"Oh, thank you!" He wasn't crying he wasn't, not even a drop. He didn't cry, not even when he was so very happy. He stepped away from Master Van and rubbed some dirt off his face, that was it. "What do I need to do?"

"The fate the Score intended for him is cruel, Luke. I don't want to tell you. You'll have nightmares. Anyone would. They want to use your power of hyperresonance, as if you were nothing but a weapon."

"They were going to make him kill." And die. "I won't let that happen. I'll do whatever it takes."

"When we return to Baticul, they'll send you to Akzeriuth before too long. It will happen there. They will probably read you a, shall we say,_ selected _segment of the Score. But, if we arrange things right, there's a way for him to talk to you that we can take care of at Choral Castle, and we could travel to Akzeriuth together."

"Really? Travel with you?" Yes, really. "But would he want to talk to me? I think he hates me."

Van sighed. "When he went to visit them his family had been utterly taken in by you. His own family didn't know that their son had been replaced by an imposter. In fact, your father was _happier_ that 'Luke' had come home an infant, it meant he had an excuse to keep his weapon safely locked away and meant that you didn't have much of a chance to discover the truth before it was too late. He doesn't want to fact the fact that his own family never truly cared for him. So you became the target for his anger at the pain their actions caused him."

Luke sighed as well. "That's sad. I hope… I hope that… But just seeing would be more than enough." He shouldn't get his hopes up, this was already almost too much. "Would you be there with me, when I die? Or would that be too dangerous?"

"I'll be there, Luke. I promise."

"Thank you." He even bowed, first his head and then a proper bow. He needed to change the subject, this was too much. "What do we tell the others?"

"What do you think, Luke?"

"Guy deserves to know the truth, he was_ his_ friend too, but I don't think he'd be happy just letting me die."

"Gailardia is a good friend, isn't he?"

"Gailardia?"

"We knew each other growing up. Luke, I think you deserve to know the whole story…"


	2. What's going on?

_Remember the warning in the A/N in the first chapter of this fic? Remember how Luke worshipped his Master Van? There's the two and two to put together to figure out the ending. You have been warned. _

-

By the end Luke was fighting very hard not to cry. "Father did all that, and Guy's still my friend and you're doing so much for us? Tear's wrong. You're…" Even if he was only seven he had to act like _him_ and he was strong and proud despite everything. So he took deep breaths to center himself and said finally, "If I wrote a letter to Guy would you give it to him afterwards? So he knows I don't mind and won't be angry at you?"

"I will, Luke." Master Van patted his shoulder again and he was so happy.

"Thank you. I, I just felt alive for the first time when I saw _him_. I want to live, and feel that way forever but if he dies, then… I wouldn't want to live."

"Why do you feel that way? You only met him once and I'm afraid he hurt you unnecessarily against my direct orders." Master Van was angry at _him_?

On the one hand Luke didn't want him to be punished, on the other it was more proof that Master Van cared about him too, replacement or not. "I felt him. Jade and Tear said it was fonons. It feels like… I was missing him. All my life. And then I found him, and I knew he was more important than anything even if I didn't know why. If replica data extraction works like that, then maybe I'm what was taken from him, do you think? Is that what home is supposed to feel like?" Luke wouldn't really know.

"I've never seen something like this, a bond between original and replica so deep. Perhaps it is because you're Lorelei's perfect isofons." Van touseled his hair. "He changed his name to Asch not long after you were created. The ashes of the sacred flame. I don't think you're the only one who felt incomplete, although he showed it by growling instead of moping. So this was why you were so unsatisfied. Most people dream of a life like yours, without any worries about food, no need to work, a mansion to run around in… But none of it meant anything to you, did it?"

"No." It was all empty. He was empty. "I wish we both could live. But if the Score is that powerful, then we can't. But what if… what if my death isn't enough? What if it takes him anyway? Please, Master Van! Please keep him safe!"

Van started to look considering. "I promise, Luke. But you're right. There may be another way. The Score should accept you in his place, but it's not certain. But if he were to… I'll have to ask Dist some questions, but I think you gave me an idea of a way to be sure."

"I'm glad." If something happened to _him_, after everything Master Van had done and he would do…

"The others have probably gone to bed for the night. Get some rest, and let me do the talking in the morning. I'll just stick as close to the truth as I can. You're not a very good liar, and anyone would be upset after hearing this, so don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

"Thank you. Goodnight, Master Van."

"Goodnight, Luke."

-

"I am not happy with having an officer of Malkuth present. But, as you do have a right to know about the arte you invented, and asking questions in the wrong places could lead to Luke's death, I will bow to his wishes. However," and Van's gaze met theirs, one by one. "Not one word of this leaves this room. Luke's life, and Asch's, are on the line."

"So you're admitting it, then." Jade leaned forward.

"It's useless to try to hide it at this point. Luke as good as told you. I suppose it's my fault for wanting to keep it from him. It's only good luck it was you he discovered this with instead of back in Baticul, although I did my best to keep there from being any catalysts until you came, Tear. Where to begin?" Van leaned back, sighing. "I suppose in ND 2000, when the original Luke fon Fabre was born and his birth score revealed that he possessed the power to summon hyperresonance by himself."

"Really?" Ion seemed taken aback.

"I wish this were only a jest. At first, the Kimlascan crown didn't realize what they had. Then, the power of hyperresonance was used to destroy Hod, ending the Hod War. After that, they began to groom Luke to be a 'weapon of Kimlasca,' as the Score foretold. I, and Tear, are survivors of the Island of Hod. After what happened there I joined the Order in what were perhaps futile hopes that I could help prevent another such disaster and, since I am a descendant of Yulia Jue, I was able to read Luke's birth score from the Sixth Fonstone. Therefore, I took advantage of my position and became his tutor in hopes of subverting him with such beliefs as citizens of Malkuth being human beings." Van grimaced.

Jade, as one of those Malkuth natives Luke fon Fabre had almost been raised to slaughter without remorse, also was displeased.

"Since his father, Duke fon Fabre, the same man that plundered Hod before its destruction, was aware of the Score, he had never treated him as anything but the weapon he wanted while feeding him lies that he would one day be king to make him think that serving Kimlasca was all there was to life. Luke became very attached to me, and I to him despite his parentage and the danger he posed. However, when he was ten years old he was kidnapped. Eventually, I and my forces tracked the kidnappers to Choral Castle, where I found that my student had been so brutalized in order to break his will that he retained nothing, not even the ability to walk and talk. I returned Luke to his mother's and Guy's care," he nodded at the man in question, "and visited when I could. However, the child I had found was_ not_ Luke fon Fabre. Some of the conspirators had managed to spirit him away through a secret passage, the same secret passage that led to their fon machinery, and left their latest replica as a decoy. They were ambushed by bandits and Luke eventually made his way home after escaping in the confusion. Only to find that an imposter had taken his place."

Luke was curled up, unable to meet any of their gazes, the picture of misery. "Should I stop for now?" Van asked him. "You don't need to be here and have to hear this again."

"No. Get it over with."

"As you wish." The kind look vanished when his gaze returned to the audience, daring them to make this any worse for this Luke. "I found him when I visited one of the campgrounds we had used for training. He hadn't eaten in two days. Once I realized what I had done I begged him to return home, but he refused. Because of how he had been raised he doubted that they loved him, and the fact that they were fooled by even a perfect isofon… Apparently even Natalia, the princess he to a large extent still loves, had been taken in. He refused to go home, to return to a life as a weapon. He'd even changed his name to Asch and still refuses to answer to his old name. He wanted to stay with me instead, as he had always talked about doing when he reached his majority before he knew that he wouldn't be allowed his freedom even then. I…"

Van tried to think of how to put this. "He was my responsibility, and what was I to do? If they'd discovered that their Luke was a replica he would have been killed, and Luke had already been confined to the manor. If I had returned Asch against his wishes and revealed my mistake Asch would have been trapped there and most likely would never have seen me again, not that he would have wanted to after what he would have seen as a betrayal. Asch does not want to reclaim the name of Luke fon Fabre, but he still hates Luke, seeing him as a symbol of how his family treated Asch long before Luke was created. I'm afraid it might have been that which allowed Mohs to use the God-generals in this operation. Asch is in command of Special Ops and… gave some orders in my name he was not authorized to. If Legretta hadn't called him to task…" Van shook his head: what a headache that was. "As Luke may have told you I, and my other troops, were given the impression by Mohs that Ion had been kidnapped instead of just leaving without Mohs' approval."

"You're blaming Mohs? Grand Maestro Mohs would never do something like this! His only ambition is to serve the Score!"

"Tear, he has reasons he believes are valid. There is an ongoing argument over the proper interpretation of part of the Closed Score that I am not authorized to reveal, even to you. However, classified details aside, Mohs believes that a war between Malkuth and Kimlasca will soon start, and that Luke will be instrumental to it. Yes, he is trying to start a war, under the conditions that will, he believes, lead to the unprecedented prosperity the Score promises." His eyes did not leave her face. "Tear, listen to me. Kimlasca is very likely to think that you and I conspired to kidnap their weapon. They follow Mohs' interpretation of the Score and it is very likely that he will try to use them to have me killed. That would leave you as the sole living heir of Yulia's hymns. Be very, very careful. I don't know what you overheard Legretta and I discussing, but while as deviations are as nothing before the Score some of those deviations can be _brutal_. Mohs does not intend for Luke to live out the year."

Hearing their gasps, Van smiled. "Yes, it is forbidden to reveal a Score of death. However, it is not necessarily a Score of death… Provided one knows that both Luke and Asch exist. It is, I am afraid, rather damning if you don't. The differences in interpretation largely revolve around the division of two titles Mohs believes apply to the same person and the fact that the Score is, in the original language, a song, and songs use metaphors… it gets complicated, which is why I failed to realize the fact that Mohs was plotting to kill one of my students until around eight months ago. I tend to be more involved in action than interpretation, and I studied those passages in secret for the two years after Luke's kidnapping and thought for some reason that Mohs, who is normally a very competent scholar, would have reached the same conclusions. I forgot that we didn't have the same information. To make matters worse, we're heading into the period where the sixth and seventh fonstones overlap and the seventh fonstone was lost years ago."

"So why haven't you just told Mohs the truth?"

"I may have to, Tear, although I'd hoped to keep Luke and Asch's nature private. Matters have started moving quickly: the hyperresonance that brought you, Luke, and Dr. Balfour here together, as well as you, Fon Master, on a mission of peace was most likely not a coincidence but the Score acting to address some deviations resulting from Moh's attempts to steer history down a mistaken track. Under the circumstances… I would like more time to study the fonstone on the Malkuth side of this base, but it might be necessary for us to find some excuse to make a side trip to Choral Castle. One of the god-generals is an old colleague of yours, Dr. Balfour, and I've had him look it over and do what he can to assure Luke and Asch's health, but your opinion would be appreciated. Dist the Reaper has been concealing some experiments for me in the research budget, and there is something he's been examining that I believe is called the Big Bang Effect that is rather worrisome, although of course you can't extrapolate directly from monsters to humans."

"I see. If you can get authorization from Kimlasca then I will gladly accompany you to there as well as Baticul."

"I have passports for all of you. Better hung for a rappig than a rappiglet: I'll almost certainly be arrested as soon as I return in any case."

"You're sure?" Guy asked.

"Don't worry, I should be able to get out of it. Forewarned is forearmed." That was practically the Oracle Knight motto. "I suggest you rest up. They're very likely to buy the excuse that the 'weak' Luke is simply exhausted from his trials. If you can, delay three days and head to Kaitzur Naval Port, or meander along the route. One of the benefits of having… eccentric underlings is a large degree of plausible deniability when there's something questionable that_ I_ want done." He sighed. "I sometimes feel like I'm running a madhouse. Oh, that reminds me Anise. Your official promotion to replace Arietta the Wild as Fon Master Guardian God-general was denied again, but I do have the authority to give you a retroactive field promotion. After all, you have been providing for Ion's security. I believe you know the relevant bylaws?"

Anise grinned. "Of course. Do I get back pay?"

"Stay out of Mohs's reach for another three months, until it becomes de facto, and you're looking at three hundred gald."

"Awesome."

"Let Arietta the Wild know I'm responsible for it, and you'll be busted down to private so fast Tokunaga's balance mechanisms will need replacing again." Van explained it to the rest of them:  
"Her transfer was… necessary, but very hard on the girl. I'm afraid due to her upbringing she's somewhat… Well, you've encountered her. She has very little restraint or respect for authority, and while that's an advantage in someone whose job is to keep an invalid from being exhausted by people's demands it's a crippling defect in the Guardian God-general to a more active Fon Master."

Van started to smile. "I think I have an idea. Don't bother delaying: head to Kaitzur Naval Port at whatever speed is in character for your group. Arietta wanting time with Ion and trying to kidnap him for it yet again will be a lot easier to arrange than it will be to lecture Asch into submission. Luke, see if you can arrange to get caught by the Hresvelgr instead of Anise. She'll be aiming for Ion, of course, no matter _how_ many times I say that high altitude isn't good for frail lungs."

"Uh, sure!" The change of topic had let Luke recover, and being given a mission by Van prompted a smile.

"I do not envy you your subordinates." Jade smirked.

"You're telling me. Do you know how much that fon slot seal Largo used on you cost? Never mind, of course you do. The odds are only one in three that I'll be able to palm the bill off on Mohs." Seeing Tear's expression, Van laughed. "Life in the Oracle Knights isn't as glamorous as Legretta may have led you to believe. She is a past master at scaring people into not giving her paperwork. Sadly for me, _someone _has to do that paperwork and her unit second in command is only authorized for so much. Legretta's loyal, never doubt that, but she tends to take things at face value. Asch can play her like a lute. That's not normally a problem, but this issue is one that he's never been rational about. They tend to be the restraining influence and then I find out…"

Noticing Jade's expression, he cut that off. "And I believe that's enough information on the inner workings of the Oracle Knights for Malkuth." He seemed to have forgotten that there was someone who wasn't family, literally or metaphorically, present. Seemed was, most likely, the operative word: he hadn't spilled anything that serious. The god-generals were well known to be eccentric. "I should get going if I'm going to track down Arietta. Luckily I brought Sync with me. Dist is already at Choral Castle."

"How wonderful." Jade didn't seem happy at the prospect of seeing his former colleague. "Do hurry and find her, I don't want him to ruin the evidence any more than he already has."

"We'll need witnesses. If all goes according to plan Arietta will strike at the Port." Jade opened his mouth: Van raised an eyebrow. "If you're going to suggest double-timing it when you have the perfect opportunity to indoctrinate a potential highly dangerous enemy like Luke here then your reputation as a military commander is undeserved."

"Point taken." Luke did not like the way Jade was smiling.

"I'm sorry, Luke, I'm going to need to be visible searching for you and the Fon Master a lot of the time you're at Choral Castle. I'll head there right at first, since it's the obvious place to look, but after that I'll need to be sending out search parties and so on."

"That's fine, Master Van."

"Since you don't remember the trip to Baticul, the ferry will be your first sea voyage. I'll definitely be onboard as well. Now that your strange fonon blindness is gone, we're going to need to make up for lost training time."

"Yes, Master Van!"

Van smiled at him, nodded at the others. "Have a safe trip." And keep Luke safe: that part was unspoken.


	3. Where are you?

_And now for Asch…_

-

Arietta had two hresvelgrs: both Luke and Ion were carried off, Anise shaking her fist at Areitta.

"Good job, Luke. Now, come here." Through the secret passage was a strange fon machine and the strange man in a strange chair that Luke had seen outside St. Binah. "Luke, this is Dist. He did the actual work of creating you."

"Nice to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine, dear boy. Now, climb up there." Luke, glancing at Van, complied. "I need to take some readings and synchronize your fon slots with Asch's. This would be much easier on you if you were unconscious."

"I can use the first fonic hymn on myself," Luke volunteered.

"Really?" Dist looked at Van for confirmation. "How intriguing."

"Yes, show me. You say you don't know the meaning?"

Luke shook his head. "There are all sorts of little… twists that Tear makes when she sings it. I think knowing the meaning has something to do with that, but I just copy the twists."

"Perhaps I'll see if you can learn the third fonic hymn after this."

Luke nodded, closed his eyes, and began to sing.

-

"I don't believe this." Dist sounded more intrigued than disbelieving. "Around a fourth of his fon slots are synchronized with Asch's already and the others are fluctuating like crazy, perhaps trying to do the same. That would explain how he's so sensitive to artes: any seventh fonon arte would affect a frequency he was looking at during some point in the casting and once he sees it he could easily examine it in detail."

"Would synchronizing them all destroy that ability?" After all, one way or another Luke and Asch communicating would be moot very soon. If he used the Big Bang Effect and moved Asch to Luke's body, then giving Asch this ability would prove highly useful.

"Actually, I don't think we need to synchronize them. The ones that are synchronized change: a fourth of them are listening for Asch at any moment."

"He's that fixated on his original? How pathetic." Sync had nothing but contempt for a replica like that.

"Perhaps, but convenient for our purposes. Asch."

"Yes?" Asch the Bloody stood on the stairs, as far away from the rest of them as he could manage without irritating Van.

"Try contacting him." Asch looked reluctant. "He's asleep, Asch. He's in no condition to do whatever it was that spooked you so badly."

"Awww, is Asch afraid of the worthless garbage?" Sync might not think highly of Luke, but he was a replica.

"…Fine." Asch folded his arms and closed his eyes.

"My. All his fon slots just stopped on Asch's frequency," Dist reported.

"He's smiling." Sync had a good vantage point. "How disgustingly cute."

"Asch, what are you picking up?"

"Some…" Asch put his hand to his forehead and braced himself against the wall with the other.

"Sync, how does Luke look?" Van recognized that pain.

"He's grimacing. It looks like those headaches you talked about are contagious, huh. Of course, Asch was already loony. Hearing voices won't make much difference."

"Not, a voice," Asch gasped out. "He's… he hears a voice, but it's not." He stumbled as he tried to get off the stairs onto an even floor. "In his dream, he's trying to not listen because it hurts, but it said my name… 'Asch, Luke, my perfect isofons, at last…'" His voice sounded dreamlike as he said it but when he stopped quoting that tone also stopped. "Dist, cut us off, damn it!"

"I can't, and according to Van there's nothing that can be done about these headaches. Perfect isofons did you say?"

"It's Lorelei?!" Sync's posture of disinterest switched to battle-readiness.

"I can't think of anything that could be this vast but a fonon sentience," Asch confessed, voice still pained. "He's trying not to listen because it hurts so I can understand what's in his dream better than he can," lazy replica, "But there's something… 'fragment of my soul, at last you have been found…' It knows I'm listening through Luke, but it's not really bothering to talk to_ me_." He gave up, or forced himself to sit down, it wasn't clear which. "I just get blurred… Isn't there any way to stop this?!"

"What is Lorelei trying to get you to do?"

"Look after that thing. I am not its guardian, I am not its vessel! I am the ashes of the sacred flame, not its guiding light, damn you! And if you care about it so much, then stop torturing it to get at me!" When the rest of them paid attention Luke's whimpers were audible, and only the hymn kept him asleep. "Why the hell would Lorelei care about a replica… What's Eldrant? Besides an Ancient Ispanian myth."

"What about Eldrant?" Of course Lorelei had to know about Eldrant, but what did Luke have to do with it?

Asch removed a hand from his head to point at Luke. "Young Scion of Lorelei's power… the one that… Oh thank god." The pain had clearly stopped. Asch took several deep breaths. "Lorelei thinks it's going to die and the Score will also stop, so it looks like we'll win, Van. But there's still going to be a seventh fonon even after the planet's memory is destroyed. 'Lorelei of Auldrant and Luke of Eldrant.' Are you going to rename the planet?"

"Not quite." Van frowned. This could either be good or disastrous. He should either kill him right away or do whatever it took to keep Luke alive. How vexing.

"It was telling him to be a good boy and obey the babysitter." Asch did not like being referred to like that, even if he was the one making the unflattering analogy. "Can you sever this?"

"Probably not without killing him," Dist said cheerfully. "Or a fon slot seal should still work on you."

"Get me one." Asch tried to climb to his fleet.

"Why does it want you to protect him?"

"It just told that thing that it was important… No, it tampered with my memory too: if Lorelei dies and Luke dies then everyone dies. The seventh fonon will go out of control. But Luke will only die if Eldrant becomes impossible and Lorelei… will only die if everyone on the planet does, and the planet itself? Damn it!"

He had not planned for Asch to find out anything like this. "The death of everyone on Auldrant is foretold by the Score. Eldrant is humanity's only means of survival."

"Damn it…" But Asch didn't argue. "Luke's immune to the Score. To any Score. Or he will be when Eldrant rises. Until then he's vulnerable, and even though he was predicted by Yulia's Score to be immune the Score itself will try to try to destroy him as the Score foretells… Why the hell would Yulia do it that way? Oh, it's not Yulia, it's people, people's desire to impose the Score, and the stuff in the Score is a warning… Lorelei is memory, Luke is hope, and people hope the Score will come true since they don't know what that means." He managed to stand up this time. "A baby… world." What a strange idea, but true.

"A replica Lorelei for a replica world." Van smiled, then frowned. "But what about Akzeriuth?"

"'Destroy himself and the city,'" Asch quoted what he'd heard so many times. "The Light of the Sacred Flame will. If he ceases to be the light of the sacred flame… Finding out he was a replica then would have fulfilled the Score. Faking his death would too." He took a deep breath. "I can't believe, I can't believe I want that thing to live."

"You do?" Sync didn't think that was a good sign. So soon after Lorelei had started messing with Asch's head he started giving a damn about Lorelei's scion, or whatever?

"He wants me to live, even at his expense. He honestly does. He waited there, all unknowing and empty, for _me_." Asch's eyes seemed caught by where Luke lay on the machine above them. "He was taken from within me, and this world can never be his home." Asch himself, who had lost his home, knew the feeling. "Until Eldrant rises, I'm one of the only things that matter to him. The only things in this world. You and I, Van. He exists for and because of us. Other replicas, like Ion and Sync, because they're his people, the ones he wants to protect. Tear, since she's Yulia's descendant and Lorelei asked him to look out for her too. Guy, who he wants to be his king. Why? He doesn't have to be, but the core of Eldrant will be the new Hod and Luke likes him… Jade, Jade is necessary."

"Necessary how?"

"I don't know, exactly. He doesn't either, so knowing everything he does won't help. He just feels it, and he likes him, so he'd rather it be him than Dist or Spinoza that helps create Eldrant. He chose him. He has choice." So very amazing. "But he can't just make whatever he wants to happen happen. He has to bow to what others want, what they choose, his word isn't law, unlike Lorelei. He wanted out of the manor, he wanted it desperately, and it wasn't until Tear came that he could manage it."

Asch's eyes hardened now. "But he is mine. He was given to me when I was born. He is _mine_ to shape."

Asch was challenging them, Van realized. Challenging them to contest his right to rule over the one he had so recently despised. The replica, Luke, had gone from thing to _Asch's_ thing. Perhaps it wasn't odd for someone who had lost so much to be so possessive. Or perhaps Lorelei had done more than just give Asch knowledge. "What do you want to do with him?" That was the question. Now that Van knew what Luke was he certainly wasn't going to let him be taken out of Van's control. But if Van still controlled Asch, then there was no conflict.

"Everything he has is mine, he is mine. I will force him to acknowledge that." Asch whirled on Dist. "Turn off that damn machine and give him to me!"

Dist looked at Van for confirmation. "Do as Asch said." Van had said 'replica world' and Asch hadn't even seemed to care. If this made both Asch and Luke even more obedient, more dedicated to bringing about Eldrant and Van's vision, then who was he to object?

Asch was at Luke's side by the time it was off, ignoring Sync and pulling Luke up. "Wake up!"

"You're here." Such simple joy. "You're here," Luke said again, as if it was important enough that it needed to be said twice. A hand reached up to touch Asch's face, Luke's smile of delight growing even broader when Asch permitted it. "Are you still angry?"

"You shouldn't have been gone so long."

"I'm sorry." Luke truly was, although he hadn't been the one who could have fixed that. Asch had known, Asch had left him there.

"I should have reclaimed you," Asch admitted. "But never let yourself be lost again, do you hear me?"

"I won't." Smiling again, Luke asked, "Does that mean I can stay with you?" Please?

"Like you have a choice. You're mine. You think I'll let you leave?"

"Really? You want me to be yours?"

"Wanting doesn't have anything to do with it. You're _mine_."

Luke's embrace would have been a tackle if they'd been standing. "Yes, oh thank you, oh…"

Asch pulled him off a few inches by the hair. "Stop crying! You're mine and it's embarrassing me!"

"I'm sorry." Luke sniffed a bit. "It's just that I'm so happy."

"Well, get used to it. I'm not going to put up with you crying all the damn time." Luke darted forward to hug him tight again: Asch had to release his hair or Luke's sudden move might have torn it out.

Asch dug his fingers into Luke's hair but seemed unsatisfied somehow. "Mine."

"Yes," Luke acknowledged without demur.

Even that didn't seem to be enough. Asch's slight frown deepened. "_Mine_."

"Yours." Luke looked worried. "Is there something I need to do?" To prove it or to earn it?

"Do?" Asch murmured, slowly starting to smile in a way that usually meant death for his opponents on the battlefield. "_You_ don't need to do anything. You just need to submit. To me and me alone!" He pinned Luke back down onto the replication machine again. "You exist to help others bring about what they want, but most people are idiots! Our parents wanted you to be me and you were incapable of doing that for them, our mother wanted you to stay her little baby if you couldn't do that, our father wanted you to kill and the Score wants you to die! Mohs, the Order, they don't care about you, they don't know what you're capable of. But _I do_. I _know you_. That's what you feel, that's why you _know_ I'm more important than anything. Because if you don't listen to me you'll do more harm than good. We aren't the same but we are akin. I'm human, I understand humans, and I'm your ashes, your former bearer. I understand you. I'm the only person in this world that does. You need me. Do you understand?"

Luke nodded, relieved. "Yes. So that's why you're so important."

"That's why. Exactly." Good boy. "While the Score still exists people will want to do things that are _wrong_. That they want because of the Score, not because of their own free will. And you're an infant, you can't tell the difference. You don't know what it feels like to be controlled by the Score, and most humans can't help you because they're not aware of it. Lorelei can't help you because Lorelei was taken apart by Yulia and put back together into the Score and can only be free of it in death. You need me. The new world will need you. So you will listen to me or you will _fail_ and everyone and everything will _die_. What happened to Lorelei, what Yulia did, the past two thousand years: they will all have been for _nothing_. Do you understand?!"

"No." Asch slapped him. "I'm sorry! I don't know about Lorelei or anything, so I don't understand that part. But I do understand that I need you."

Asch sighed, aggrieved. "Van and I will just have to explain it to you in small words later. I'm sorry I punished you. I thought you were rebelling when instead you were just being honest about what you knew. That was uncalled for."

"It's okay. You were just trying to help me not do things wrong. I hate it when I'm doing something wrong and no one tells me and I only find when it's too late." Van had joined Sync on the upper level so that he could see what was going on soon after Asch had leaped up there. Yes, Luke hated that. Some discipline was all it had taken to make him adore Van.

"Even so. You're an idiot, but putting you in someone's control isn't going to do any good if they act like an idiot too." Asch sighed and let Luke sit up. Luke leaned against him and practically purred when Asch stroked his hair. "You're that sensitive to me?" Asch stopped petting him and seemed to focus. Luke practically meeped, startled by something the rest of them couldn't perceive. Asch laughed. "Well, this will be easy. But then, that's why it's necessary. Such a child."

"Is that bad?"

"No. You're far preferable to Lorelei and you're not going to get any ideas about controlling others with your power. You're simply incapable of it, it's anathema to you, and this is a necessary side effect of that." Luke's head tilted questioningly. "It would be within your power to make me love you, be as devoted to you as you are to me. But you'd hate that."

The very idea seemed to disgust Luke, Van was pleased to see. "It wouldn't mean anything then. I'd rather you just tolerated me, or even hated me, than make it so you would _never _like me."

"It has to be real," Asch murmured. "It has to be their own choice."

"Do you mind that I…"

"You don't have a choice about feeling a need for me, no. And I won't give you one about obeying me. But there's a difference between obsession and love. You do love me, but then you love easily. Don't worry that it's a compulsion just because we just met. Ion's your friend already: you were looking after from him from the second time you met."

Luke seemed relieved that his feelings for Asch were his own.

"And I may have to control you, but I _don't_ have to like you. If you weren't likeable then not liking you and being as rough as I needed to," Asch's fingers curled into Luke's hair like claws: not tight enough to hurt but demonstrating the possibility. "To force you to obey and beat those flaws out of you without any hesitation whatsoever would be an advantage. As it is, I think I may be starting to… tolerate you." _Now _he tightened enough to hurt for a bare instant. "But that just means I will force you to obey and remove your flaws without any hesitation whatsoever to make sure you don't get yourself hurt as well as those around you. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Hmm. It's still not enough. You're so very malleable. That's a quality I need to preserve, for Eldrant's sake, but if I were to give you an order and Ion or Guy pleaded otherwise what would you do? Don't lie to me, I won't punish you for telling you the truth even if I don't like it."

Luke hesitated. "It… it would depend? If something came up you didn't know about, or… but if you were there I would ask you."

"That's good. Don't follow me blindly: I am human. Obeying a bad order is just as bad as disobeying a necessary one. What matters are results." Still, Asch frowned. "We are capable of surviving without each other. We did it for seven years even though we were miserable. You're capable of escaping me if you think it's necessary. Therefore I need to learn how not to make you think that it's necessary. Trust is also not something this engenders. It is something that needs to be built." He pet Luke's hair gently now. "For the time that you are here you will obey me in all things. You will do _nothing _without my permission. You will argue or ask for an explanation so that you can learn to trust my judgment, but if you aren't convinced you will still bow to my will so that we can see what happens. Understand?"

"Yes…" Belonging was something that Luke craved. Obeying? The only one who had given him good advice was Master Van. His parents and others had too often asked him to do things he simply couldn't, thinking he was Asch inside. He'd lost all trust in their judgment, in the ability of anyone but Van to know what was right, and even Asch would have to create that.

The one threat he could hold over Luke's head, the threat Luke had been willing to barter obedience to avoid until the idea of denying Guy and Ion was placed in his head, was abandonment, and for Eldrant's sake Asch could not force Luke away.

"How long until his friends get here?" Asch asked Van.

That was intelligent. Lay the groundwork before there was anyone here (other than Van) to distract Luke from Asch. "They're traveling overland. At least two days." And that was pushing themselves far harder than was practical.

"Have I been assigned quarters?"

"Arietta's friends are flying in necessities, but for now we're mostly limited to what we brought with us. Pick whatever room you like." Asch's cell would_ not_ be the best place to put him.

"May we go? I would like to get started."

"Certainly. I expect both of you to keep me informed."

Luke opened his mouth to agree but Asch clapped a hand over it. "You do nothing without my approval. Nothing. Luke, report to Van when I instruct you to, and keep track of what he will need to know."

"Alright." It was a little nonsensical, for Asch to order Luke to do what he would have anyway, but with discipline in soldiers and others it was the habits that counted.

"Good." Asch helped him up, and from Luke's expression that bit of assistance was a wonderful treat. Van wondered if Asch knew what he was doing on a conscious level, if he understood the techniques of gaining control or he was simply copying Van, his example of how a leader should be.


	4. When will it begin?

_This is the chapter in which it earns the M rating. The_ other_ reason it's rated M is what the ending sets up to happen._

-

"We can't let Luke learn the truth." It simply wasn't an option. "Not until after Auldrant is gone, if ever. You wish to create a world that would never let there be another Hod. Luke_ is_ that world and he would kill us, if he had to, and die, if that was what it took to prevent what happened to Hod happening to all of Auldrant. Before I understood knowing that you wanted to replace everyone with replicas could have made _me _turn against you." Asch shook his head. "The land falling is a natural occurrence, a delayed reaction to the damage to the sephiroth that happened when Hod and then Akzeriuth were destroyed and the Albertesque Seal with them. Gathering replica data will let the children of Auldrant's people survive even though their parents are doomed, as Lorelei is willing to die if Luke and humanity will live on. I will go to Akzeriuth, and die 'trying to destroy the miasma.'"

"If you die before Eldrant rises, who will keep Luke isolated? I won't have the time and I don't… someone knowingly murdering a world according to what the Score says is necessary," Van grimaced, "is not the best influence on him."

"I'll die, but I won't stay dead." Asch's smile was tinged with the bloody satisfaction that sometimes came after a kill. "Luke won't let me. He loves me too much. Don't worry, Van. I won't contaminate Eldrant by harboring seventh fonons that contain Lorelei's personality. Luke is the scion of Lorelei. I am Lorelei's replica."

"Lorelei's replica?"

"Just because humans are only capable of creating stable replicas using the seventh fonon doesn't mean a sentience can't create one using all seven. My mother's illness rendered her sterile. My seventh fonons were Luke's from before my birth." Asch seemed almost smug. Perhaps because he wasn't Duke Fabre's son, perhaps because he had never been under the Score's control. Perhaps because he was the first citizen of Eldrant to walk Auldrant, the promise of humanity's freedom.

But if Asch was Lorelei's isofonic replica, then if Lorelei died and the Big Bang Theory was correct Asch's personality would be displaced by Lorelei's.

And then Lorelei would control Luke.

He'd hated Luke for a long time because of how disgustingly naïve he was. True, Van himself had been working very hard to preserve that foolishness, to create it in fact. If it hadn't been for Van giving Luke someone to trust in a building populated by those who didn't understand him well enough to be trustworthy no matter how good their intentions Luke would have grown up suspicious and resentful of everything and everyone. Instead, he'd had a rock to cling to in that storm and Van had ended up the focus of almost all the love of a little boy in a teen's body. He wasn't that immature: not for his true age, but seeing him, seemingly older than Van had been when his own innocence was shattered, not seeing what fate had in store for him… It had made him so frustrated. Luke had become the target of all his self-hate, all the hatred he had for the child who had been used to destroy Hod.

He'd thought that it was safe to use Luke as the target of the hate he couldn't afford consuming him. He'd thought it was safe to hate Luke _fon Fabre_ the replica so that he could work with Asch the Bloody despite his parentage.

He would need Jade to check Dist's results, but it was almost certain that Asch would have to be killed as soon as Eldrant had succeeded and Luke would have to survive Akzeriuth.

Unless… Would Luke be able to keep Lorelei from taking over Asch? If there was no way for him to, then he should perhaps be kept in the dark, as he had been kept in the dark about Akzeriuth until telling him became a necessity. But if Luke could bring Asch back from the dead, then he could also restore an Asch-turned-Lorelei. But he would not restore Lorelei if he knew that Lorelei had killed Asch to save itself.

Van had probably better get them used to the idea.

And yet, the fact that Asch could speak so calmly now about destroying Akzeriuth? Van himself and the other god-generals were exactly the same, but it would be easy to make Asch, the true Luke, the one he wanted to destroy once again. He would have to guard against that. The knowledge that he was Luke's creator and even Asch had nothing to do with Duke Fabre would help.

It was not wise to make an enemy of his most powerful pieces. If he wanted them to die he might break them by accident, and then Eldrant would fail and all this would have been for nothing, as Asch had told Luke. He _refused_ to let it all have been for nothing.

He would ensure the survival of the new world he had brought into this world. When Eldrant had replaced Auldrant, when everything was over and he was the only piece of the original world remaining, then he could kill himself and take Lorelei with him.

Lorelei.

Why take it out on Asch and Luke when there was a far more deserving target?

Thank goodness he'd realized this, or else Lorelei might have outlived him. The thought made him shudder and have to come up with an explanation for Asch.

Lying, manipulating his pieces, it was second nature.

Of course he buried everything under a false front. Of course he had taken refuge in insanity. Part of him was still the child that had been used to destroy his home and people, feeling his body be used to create a twisted parody of a hyperresonance that he couldn't control or stop, his memories and self twisted by it even before they began to die.

Luke's brightness and innocence _reminded_ him. Reminded him of what he had lost. He hated the reminder that innocence was doomed to be broken by the Score. But perhaps Van could love the proof that one day there would be a place where innocence could survive unbroken.

He'd repeat Hod for the sake of such a world, he'd decided that years ago.

"Well," Van concluded the conversation he'd been having while his mind worked, "We should have another day to work with. The rest of us are well-practiced at keeping up facades. I can trust you to keep Luke from giving what he knows away?"

"I suggest you use Dist to keep Jade distracted. He's quite perceptive. Luckily from our dossier on him fomicry should be enough of a trigger issue that it will occupy his attention. He's not good with people: he prefers data, and while he's a wizard at fonology he's not all that skilled at fontech, by comparison at least."

"Gailardia's hobby is fontech." Asch had even been able to take the revelation that there had been a potential assassin in his family's home well, since Van had implied that Guy had been there solely to keep Duke Fabre from using Asch or Luke to repeat the Hod tragedy. He wasn't there for the purpose of assassination, oh certainly not. It was just something that he would do if it needed to be done. Which, given Gailardia's kindness, had been the truth all along, even if they'd thought otherwise. "He's very likely to look into fomicry now that he knows it's important to Luke's health, in particular the Big Bang Theory. He doesn't have the Necromancer's depth of knowledge or experience with people attempting to manipulate false data to suit their own goals, but if they work together too closely they might start finding holes in our story."

"What do you want to keep Gailardia from finding out?" Asch asked, and that was the question, wasn't it.

Gailardia was certain to realize, if he hadn't already, that Van was the one who had created the replica Luke. He wanted to work beside Gailardia again. He wanted Gailardia's forgiveness for Hod. But he feared his lord's rejection and hatred more than he hoped for redemption.

"That… is a question. But you're right, if we tell Gailardia most of the truth he won't have any reason to work with an officer of Malkuth to learn more. Especially not if he's told that Malkuth was the country responsible for the Hod disaster, not Kimlasca." Gailardia would be easy to sway, if he was given the truth in bits at a time. Or perhaps never at all, as with Luke. "Asch, you said that Gailardia could be the King of Eldrant?"

"Luke could take control of his fonons away from Lorelei. It would be an effort, but it's possible."

That was a relief. Van had intended Guy and Tear to be the last of Auldrant to live on Eldrant, wanting to spare at least their lives. Of course, that had meant that Lorelei wouldn't die with him, but kill Gailardia? Kill his sister? "Who else?"

"Those he's greatly attached to. But it's very hazardous. It might be possible to use something akin to the Big Bang Effect to do a… less difficult transformation. However, there would be a risk that either their memories would be erased or the transformation would fail and Lorelei would still control some of their fonons even in the recreated body." In other words, don't do it with anyone who isn't expendable.

Jade, perhaps. He might be useful, but he was dangerous and certainly not vital. "Well, that's given me much to think about. Why don't you go reclaim Luke from Arietta and Ion?" Caretaker of replicas or not, Sync was not all that happy with Luke. He was, very likely, jealous. Luke was just another replica, but he had a destiny, he was someone important and not just a replacement.

"Yes sir." Asch gave a nod that was almost a salute and left Van to figuring out how to address the issue of Lorelei. Jade Curtiss could be very useful in that regard as well.

-

"So Arietta doesn't know that Ion is a replica?" Luke seemed amazed. "I mean, they couldn't tell that I wasn't you, but that was because they thought I had amnesia and that could explain why I didn't act anything like you. But Anise didn't say anything about the Fon Master having amnesia."

"That was why Arietta was transferred," Asch explained. "If she spent too much time around him she could tell the difference. She may suspect, on some level, and just not want to think that her Ion is dead."

"That's sad."

Asch patted him, seemingly idly. Luke allowing himself to be manhandled as Asch pleased was a good sign. It meant he trusted Asch, and each painless encounter reinforced that, but also that he felt Asch had the right to do as he pleased with Luke's body.

He didn't think the instinct of how to go about this was from Lorelei. Or perhaps it was memory, but not the fonon's memory. Not the memory of something bodiless: a human memory. An animal memory? He grabbed Luke by the neck, the back of it, painlessly, and tugged him over to the bed. Luke was at first startled by having such a vulnerable point taken hold of so suddenly and then relaxed, relieved, and let Asch pull him. Asch had seen Arietta's monsters, some of them, do this sort of thing with cubs. He wasn't Luke's mother, anything but, but this felt right.

"Asch?" Luke looked up at him questioningly after Asch nudged him to sit down.

"What is it?"

"Can I?" Luke held his arms up, miming that he wanted to hug Asch, touch him back.

"I suppose. But only for now." Asch sat down and let Luke embrace him the way he had on the replication machine. Strange to have a good memory of something that had been so much torment. He reached out along their mental bond to savor Luke's contentment. Feeling Luke's emotions could cause Asch to feel them as well, or rather to react to them. Luke was content to be here, and owned, so Asch felt satisfied.

Only not quite.

Luke was such a _child_. Leafing through his memories… everyone but Van who looked at him had seen Asch and been disappointed in Luke's performance. Luke had craved being recognized as himself, being understood. That was all he'd ever wanted, really, someone who saw him and loved him for himself and would help him learn to be strong and wise so the people he cared about would stop saying he wasn't good enough. Van had filled that need, but Master Van was rarely there. Asch had said he'd keep Luke with him and that meant Luke wouldn't be alone all the time anymore. There was Guy, but Guy's friendship hurt _because of _how close it was to friendship with Luke. Guy saw Luke better than anyone except Van through the mask of Asch… But Guy still had thought Luke was Asch.

"Do you think he'll understand now?" Luke asked tentatively, knowing what Asch had been examining.

"Yes, Van and I will make sure he does." Asch had always been so unhappy, Luke the same, but it was so easy for him to make Luke happy and seeing Luke happy he could imagine his own happiness. Perhaps something so easy shouldn't give him a sense of accomplishment, but Guy, Natalia, Mother, Van: they had all failed at making Luke happy even though they'd tried and yet it was so easy for him, for Asch and Asch alone.

He dreaded having to face Natalia. He could command troops, but dealing with people? People he had such a history with? He'd left her behind, let her down. He'd thought she was happy with the replica, but just like how Guy's closeness to what Luke had needed had taunted Luke how close Luke was to the Asch she loved had clearly taunted Natalia. So close and yet so far…

People were hard. But Luke was easy, Luke understood Asch and Asch understood Luke. His replica, someone like him. Someone who understood him.

Someone not exactly human.

Perhaps Lorelei deserved most of the blame for causing Asch to be such a hybrid, the human shell of an inhuman being. Luke had learned humanity from him and Asch had also been changed by Luke's presence, perhaps.

Perhaps this was something to do with that.

These feelings were strange. Luke was his, but there were so many meanings of the word 'his.' His what?

He could list specific meanings that applied to Luke, he supposed, but when he tried they all seemed inadequate and it returned to that single word_ his_. He could make of Luke whatever he wanted, but what did he want?

"I need to train you, so you'll grow strong enough to protect yourself," Asch mused aloud. Luke's reaction to the idea of being trained was simple joy: the times when Van had trained him were his happiest memories except for recent ones, with Asch. _Asch _training him? "And make up for lost time on your education. I knew Ancient Ispanian by the time I was ten. and you're not incapable of learning with the proper motivation." Such gratitude! For something so simple!

Maybe Asch was lucky to have gotten out of there when he did.

No, he _was _lucky, he decided.

Akzeriuth, and then he would keep Luke away from the world so he didn't know what was happening until Eldrant had risen. But Luke hated being confined, so Asch would simply have to become Luke's world.

He was someone irreplaceable to Luke. Someone precious, someone who did for him what no other could. Luke would never not need him, but he wasn't just a tool to Luke. Luke loved him enough that he would soon become willing to be his tool, in fact. Luke loved Asch because Asch saw him and didn't think he was not good enough. Asch thought he was growing to love Luke faster than was safe (he had a duty, he should at least try to stay impartial), because Luke saw him and loved him.

Someone who _understood_. Someone he could make his and his alone, even though Natalia had been fooled and Van's true loyalty was to creating the new world and his father had seen him as a tool.

He didn't want to share him. Not with Guy, Sync, not even with Van. He wanted to be Luke's everything. It was only fair, after all. Luke had been taken from within him, he was Asch's and Asch understood that now and deserved to have him back.

It was when Luke, daringly, moved onto Asch's lap to get closer (he really should have made him ask permission first, but then he had given tacit permission for contact in general) and squirmed around a bit to get comfortable before tucking his head under Asch's chin to bask in the feelings of wantedness and that rare gem approval that Asch realized a certain part of what being Luke's everything entailed.

Luke was mentally too young to think about that sort of thing, he'd have his heart broken if he tried to have a relationship like that. He didn't understand how to build a relationship at all, and if someone were to tell him they loved him he would be putty in their hands once they managed to get through his distrust. He would be taken advantage of dreadfully and Asch didn't want that to happen to his Luke.

Yet they were both physically seventeen, and Luke wouldn't possibly say no. He wouldn't even really understand the significance of the act, just that it was getting closer, and felt good, and was called making love.

Luke was his… twin? Younger brother? Young, he would perhaps be taking advantage of him, some would say, taking advantage of this. It would be wrong, by this world's rules.

And why should he care about this world when it condemned him to death? Van and the others despised humans, that was obvious. Well, Arietta preferred monsters and Dist had his own agenda, but the world had to end because even if the Score was destroyed human nature would just lead to another one, just like people had willingly followed the Score to destroy Hod and plot his death.

This wasn't from Lorelei. Why would something bodiless desire something so physical, so animal? He wanted to mark and claim every inch of Luke's body, engrave his name on his heart so he would never forget him, never replace him with another loved one. Always place Asch first above all others: if he were just a parent or mentor to him then, well, children grew up. Better to make Luke grow into a shape that suited Asch then force him to rebel or be kept a child. Asch didn't like weakness, especially not in things that were his. Luke was his, so he would be perfect.

Everything Asch wanted.

_Now _he let himself feel that possessive desire as lust, and Luke squirmed again, looking up at him. Luke looked… hopeful?

"Do you understand what it is that we want?" Asch asked, just to make sure.

"To become one," Luke told him, which was poetic if unrealistic. If he'd been given the talk euphemisms had certainly been involved.

Asch laughed at him, but not unkindly. "Maybe for us it would be that, but _this_ is what we're thinking about." He'd been raised first a noble and then a soldier, and for one mistresses were to be expected (although keeping one after marriage could be tricky: Malkuth was more tolerant of it) and for the other whores were.

He showed him one of the better experiences, testing for his reaction. Desire, yes, but also jealousy. Luke was jealous of someone Asch hadn't even bothered to get the name of? "Don't be silly."

"I can't help it. They got to feel you like that and make you feel like that! Please, Asch! I, I want this!" Luke bared his own memories: he'd played with himself a few times, he had a teenager's body after all, but nothing like that. For it to be Asch touching him, claiming him, making it feel so good? Better than any fantasy. "I want you," he added, pleading. "Please."

"No one would understand, maybe not even Van," Asch warned him.

Luke was clearly wondering what the point to that statement was. "No one understands us." Why would this be any different? Why would it matter? "Are, are you worried there will be consequences? I don't mind, I want this no matter what, but if it matters to you…"

"Don't be ridiculous. Van wouldn't approve. You're under my command, for one thing, and this sort of thing is damaging to impartiality. Not that I'm impartial in that sense when it comes to you. You're already mine, this is just another aspect of that. I doubt Sync would be surprised, he said that you were just begging to be taken advantage of earlier."

"I think he might be worried about me, a bit. He wasn't taken advantage of that way, but… They made him to be used and tried to throw him away. I think that's the fate of replicas in this world, he may be right. I mean, I was born for a purpose but at least it was a good one." Saving Asch, helping Van… "He acts like he doesn't like me but I don't think he knows how to be friendly. I don't think he's ever really wanted to find out before. I think he's worried that I might be controlling him." Luke hated that idea. "Will… I wish I didn't know that I might be able to do that. I hate when they look at me and…"

"Most people would bow to you for it. People who hate the Score are rare." He stroked Luke's hair comfortingly.

"That's not any better. It was bad enough when I couldn't talk with Pere because I was a noble."

Asch sighed. "Only you…"

"I don't want this power. I wish the Score would just go away. I hate that so many terrible things have happened to you, and Van, and Guy, and all of Ion's poor replicas, and… everyone. Van told me there would be a plague, or a poison, or something that would kill everyone and there's nothing that can be done to stop it except… me. And I can't save anyone, just make it so there can be a place where replicas can survive, at least."

"You can save a few people," Asch reassured him. "But you have to get stronger." Luckily Luke didn't know all that many people. Guy, Pere, Natalia/Meryl, Mystearica: they could all be allowed to survive, although Natalia… from the reports on her, she would go down with her country unless she could be persuaded that she still had a duty to their replicas. "You don't control, Luke. You aren't capable of choosing to do it and I would know if you had ever done it by accident. I won't let you, don't worry. But you do… allure. You're hope, Luke. Of course they want you." He tilted Luke's head so he could whisper into his ear, delighting in the shivers. "And you can give them hope, Luke, and love. That's what you're for, after all, and you need it. But you belong to me. I won't let you forget it."

"I won't." He couldn't possibly want to, not when Asch… "May I kiss you?" He only just remembered to ask.

"Yes. If you ask permission for everything during this it will take too long." Asch smiled hungrily. "I'll still tell you what to do, though, so don't worry your pretty little head about inexperience. Just do exactly what I tell you." He moved in to capture Luke's eager lips.

Control. Asch had always lacked control over his life, and Luke like this, begging for Asch to give him orders, thrilling to be controlled well as Asch did to this perfect dominance? He would have taken Luke right then, rough and hard and still wanting it, if he hadn't wanted to tease him, torture him, make him ask for it, teach him that Asch's touch meant pleasure, Asch's orders meant rapture. Mark every inch of his replica's body as his own, and he wouldn't damage what was his.

Luke's inexperience meant he couldn't hold out for very long, which was flattering but meant his stamina had to be restored with an apple gel when he was so tired he couldn't keep his eyes open, let alone have another body part retain its alertness. "Ah, Asch, I can't…" Asch griped in the right place and stopped moving long enough for Luke to regain enough control to obey Asch's order not to come this time until told in order to work on that stamina.

"That's good, Luke, you caught yourself in time." He stroked his Luke's back soothingly, or inflamingly in this case, as the poor thing trembled with the need to release and the effort needed to refrain. "Don't worry, this will feel very, very good when I'm done." Enough to make up for this frustration tenfold.

Luke wanted to protest that it felt very good already and he wasn't weak enough he couldn't take some pain if it meant having Asch inside him instead of those fingers that were driving him _mad_ but managed to hold it back.

He had to whimper when Asch told him that his patience would be rewarded and _those fingers_! He tensed up, he couldn't stop it, all he could do was gasp for air. "It's fine, Luke," Asch told him softly, and he almost groaned with relief before everything became white-hot heaven again and _Asch_…

"If I didn't have better control I could come just watching you, inside and out," Asch told him when he could hear again. In fact, that was what had pushed him over the edge earlier when he'd meant to hold out a bit longer to enjoy Luke's hand on him. Feeling what Luke felt, and vice versa? The near-innate knowledge of what to do to drive the other mad that even innocent Luke had picked up on so quickly? "You've ruined me for anyone else, do you realize that?" He slowly withdrew his fingers. They'd been doing this for how long and only now gotten around to the main event? "Yet another reason to keep you."


	5. Why do this?

_And the reunion. Guy check, Tear check…_

-

"Hello! Anybody home?" Anise called, after whistling. Sure, it was pretty run-down, but it was a _castle_. Luke had been obnoxious at first, and a little creepy after the thing she had been absent for, but Ion said he was nice and yeah, she could kind of see why Ion would think that. If he was a replica, though, he might not inherit anything, and the last thing her parents needed was another drain on the family. Even if he could fight, and heal, well enough to join the Oracle Knights if Asch went back home… Oh, all this was so complicated!

Her salary increase meant that she could now take out a loan, and that meant she could pay off her parents' debts to Mohs, but Mohs might just arrange for them to get in more debts…

But right now she had to find Ion.

"It's not my home."

The voice sounded entirely unlike Luke's to everyone but Tear, who as a singer had a good understanding on how tone and personality could affect pitch and so on. Luke's voice, but not Luke.

Luke's face, and hair, but not Luke.

"Wow." Anise had rarely seen God-general Asch the Bloody, since the head of the Special Operations division was usually out in the field, but that was him and he looked like Luke.

"…Luke." Guy just stared. He hadn't really… it hadn't seemed real until now, he'd thought Van was up to something other than what he'd told them, but this was the boy who had vanished seven years ago. Colder, harder, but he could see Lord Luke fon Fabre in the noble bearing his Luke lacked, the cold reserve he'd never had. Not only that. He could see _Duke _fon Fabre in this Luke.

"Guy." A nod of acknowledgement that said nothing, face carefully giving nothing away. "It's good to meet you, Mystearica Fende. I've heard so much about you from your brother and Legretta. I wish we had first encountered each other under other circumstances. I had not been informed of your presence."

"Where are Van and Luke?" Belatedly she realized that calling a replica what had first been his name might not be a good idea.

"Commandant Grants had to return to Kaitzur to report a lack of success and rally the garrison there to begin searching the area near the border with Malkuth. Luke, my perfect isofon, is in the lab, where I was until Arietta alerted us to your approach. God-general Anise, Fon Master Ion has suffered no ill effects and can be found on one of the towers. Legretta will escort you there later, as you will very likely need the backup."

"Thanks for the warning." Damn Glomietta…

"Your perfect isofon? You mean they actually managed to create one?" All of Hod's atrocities had failed to produce a single one, despite the fanatic effort the possibility of immortality via using the Big Bang Effect to transfer into replacement bodies had inspired.

"Ah, Dr. Jade Balfour, the Father of Fomicry. Mohs' orders were to eliminate you if necessary while recapturing Fon Master Ion. I must admit your presence as well as Luke's was an incentive to take those orders without clearing them with the Commandant first."

"I quite understand, under the circumstances."

"But yes, it appears he is a perfect isofon. Which was the sole reason I didn't kill him when he offered himself to my blade, Legretta or no Legretta." Old, hard anger there. "There appear to be mental effects involved. Your assistance in the lab is requested." And required.

"The effect seeing you had on Luke was quite… dramatic." And what effect had there been on the original, Jade's researcher half wanted to know.

"Our fonons resonate naturally. The sense of recognition was the least of it. It appears that his rapid progress as a seventh fonist was caused by his fon slots frequency-searching in order to synchronize with mine. Now that this has happened… It is hard to stay angry with someone when you have walked a mile in their shoes. The seventh fonon controls memory, along with other things."

So 'Asch' wasn't that likely anymore to kill Luke. Good to know.

"I saw him once since his creation," when Asch had gone to Baticul, "but it appears that since he is the one composed of the seventh fonon it took his awareness of my existence to trigger the various effects. Dist has data."

"Splendid. Fetch it for me and let me know when he's left my temporary lab."

Asch's eyes narrowed and his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "Van has ordered him to assist you, and under the circumstances I would prefer a colleague and my usual doctor having oversight. I have read the dossiers on you, Necromancer, and you'll have to forgive me for being somewhat cautious when it comes to Malkuth, hyperresonance, and fomicry."

Jade grimaced. Perfect isofons? The bombshell this would drop! He had to find out the details, as soon as possible. Yet another reason God-general Grants would have been forced to cover this up. Van had mentioned the Big Bang Effect, yes, but _perfect_ isofons? If it were known to have happened… Certain parties would not hesitate to assassinate Asch, observe what happened to Luke, and if the transfer was successful… Another city being used for inhuman experiments and then destroyed to prevent the research falling into enemy hands (or being exposed) was almost an inevitability. "If I may ask, exactly what do you mean by 'perfect?'"

"It's possible that our frequencies aren't identical, but they're the same down to the lowest decimal place the technology can measure. Normal frequencies don't have more than ten decimal places. The frequency that Luke and I share is pi."

"Pi? As in 2pir equals the circumference of a circle? _Lorelei's_ fonon frequency?"

"We believe that's the reason I'm capable of using hyperresonance by myself. Replicas tend to be weaker, of course. We don't know if Luke is capable of it."

"I see." Hyperresonance and the pursuit of immortality had killed thousands at Hod. Combine the potential to control both of them into two people, and… Jade made a mental note to keep an eye on escape routes. The fon belt knew that if he had to bring someone he didn't trust (Dist, for example) into something this big he would have contingency plans involving assassination. But… "Fon Master Ion and I have been sent on a mission of peace by Emperor Peony." Although something told him that this was bigger than even a potential war. Or perhaps, he mused as the wheels started to really turn, Luke was the key to that war. A living weapon, indeed.

"You will be allowed to take a fon disc with you. We also can't afford to remain here for more than two more days. Circumstances with Grand Maestro Mohs are proving difficult." Asch walked the rest of the way down the stairs and then turned. "Follow me." Placing two spheres into a decorated wall revealed a secret passage. "This was what Van missed when he found this place."

They followed. "Guy." Asch didn't look at him when he spoke. "As Luke's manservant your duty is to him, and most certainly not to Duke Fabre. Understood?"

"Understood." No, most certainly not to his father's murder. He wouldn't tell Duke Fabre anything about what Van was up to for sure, but that statement was for the benefit of the listeners, so they knew Guy wouldn't reveal Luke's identity and let him be killed, and to show Guy that Asch knew who Guy was.

It was easy to think of him as Asch. He'd known him as Luke, but for seven years Luke had been _Luke_.

They heard running footsteps coming towards them. Asch smiled slightly, seeming unsurprised. "Part of the consequences of being perfect isofons is the ability to share thoughts as well as memories." In other words, Asch had let Luke know they were almost here.

Jade, Anise, and Tear hadn't known Luke that long, but they had put him in the category of spoiled, bratty, angsty noble teenager with issues. How Luke looked was surprising to them, but it was _shocking_ to Guy.

Luke was _happy._ He looked like the child they'd found out he was, someone secure, loved, and happy instead of someone constantly frustrated by being forced into molds they didn't fit. Luke sometimes showed glimpses of this smile, usually when Master Van was there to train him, but the full force if it hit Guy and forced an answering grin onto his face.

Luke had begged Guy not to drag him back to the manor, away from Asch, and if he still wanted that then Guy was happy to go awol with him, just to preserve that smile. Forget vengeance on Duke Fabre. Depriving him of the child he'd meant to use to cause other Hods was more than enough. "Guy!" Luke hadn't hugged him since an epic lecture on Duke Fabre's part and a threat to fire Guy if Luke kept showing inappropriate affection towards servants. "It's him, it really is, and he doesn't hate me!"

"That's great, Luke!" Guy embraced him back, grinning so hard he thought his face would split. Yeah, he'd just have to get a message to Pere somehow.

-

"So that's what happened." Guy sighed. "Damn it, Van why didn't you just tell me? Do you think I would have blamed you for being strapped into a machine that made your powers go out of control?"

"I was afraid you would. The results were…"

"It was even in the Score, Van." He'd been read the passage. "There wasn't anything you could have done. I know you: if there was, you would have. As your liege lord I have reviewed the case and absolved you of guilt." They hadn't gone through the full formula for that, not by a long shot, but at least it made Van feel better. He'd been carrying that guilt all this time? "So it was Malkuth that did it, not Kimlasca, but now Kimlasca has decided to get in on the fun. No wonder you helped me get in there even though it wasn't all that safe. I knew you had a reason for telling me to wait so long to kill him. Duke Fabre doesn't love him enough for it to be worth it if he's willing to do that. But, since Asch trusts you and Luke trusts me we can keep them both out of there."

"The problem is the other passage I read you."

"Akzeriuth. Damn it."

"If we could evacuate the residents before the city is destroyed… as a replica, Luke can't summon a powerful enough hyperresonance to destroy the city itself without dying. But, if we have him destroy a single target the rest of the city will go with it."

"A single target?"

"The passage ring of the sephiroth that keeps that area of the Outer Lands afloat."

Guy laughed. "As if I didn't know how you ended up head of the god-generals. You're good, Van. _Very _good. What else are you up to? You've been hinting at…"

"If Akzeriuth's area falls, we could use the resulting free fonons to create a replica of the island of Hod. We also managed to recapture the replica data of every single inhabitant, including your sister Mary."

It took Guy awhile to process this. "They wouldn't be them. What would I do with a county full of infants? Who would take care of them all?"

"Walking and talking can be programmed in, although I suggest sticking only to the basics. The more that is programmed in the longer it takes for a personality to outgrow the programming."

"That's a relief. They wouldn't be them, but… Malkuth threw away Hod. Why shouldn't we take advantage of the Score," Guy's eyes flashed with just a hint of anger when he spoke that word, "and Malkuth's misfortune to bring it back? They wouldn't be them, but… I owe it to them. As their count, to see that the data whose loss slowly killed them… They're not them, but that data is what is left of my people." He could… he could do this for them?

Not could. Had to, for his people and his debt of honor. He nodded to Vandesdelca firmly. "What do I need to do?"

-

Asch and Luke's ability to communicate without any detectable signal was easy to verify: write words that only one saw and the other could say them as soon as they were shown. Asch found it tiresome, Luke thought it was a game. They were also very… aware of each other. Moods flashed back and forth, the way they would position themselves in a room, Asch tossing a rice ball to Luke without either of them having to look for Luke to catch it…

"It was… disturbing. I don't know what Van told you, but I hated him. I never had him killed because then they would have mourned, but that and Van's objections were the only reasons. I… used him as a scapegoat. I hadn't so much come there intending to kill him as… scar him, perhaps. So there would be something to tell us apart." Producing scars, Jade well knew, took _work _and keeping the victim away from a seventh fonist long enough for the injury to set in and the body to be convinced that there should be scar tissue there, so even if it were cut off and a healing spell applied the scar would grow back. It was not a matter of just one cut.

"But he saw me, and then he _saw _me, and then everything else… he said that everything ceased to matter. It was more intense for him than for me, but it was the same feeling and it was… disturbing. Especially when he acted like that and part of me wanted to… I didn't know what." Asch looked at the door to avoid Jade's eyes. "He is his own person, and yet he feels as though he is part of me, as though we share one mind, one body that has been cut in two. When Van had Arietta brought him here and told me to let him connect just to see what would happen…" Asch flexed his fingers. "It was like regrowing a limb that had been cut off and was giving you phantom pains. Even when I started to pick up on one of his headaches I still couldn't make myself wall him off. It would be like cutting off an arm. I could, but it would be highly unpleasant."

"Do you understand how replica data extraction works?"

"Some of the seventh fonons containing the memory of how the body should look are removed and used as the core of a new body. Normally this process disrupts the frequency and a perfect isofon won't happen, but Luke appears to contain my fonons intact. And the fonons added to him have picked up their signature and frequency. In fact, his body 'feels' more like mine than my own does, since this one contains perhaps a tenth of the fonons with my personal signature in existence. Or that's Dist's theory, at least. And leaving Lorelei out of it."

Yes, the fact that an isofon was connected that way was why the Big Bang effect was almost inevitable for the two of them. If Asch's body started to die his memories, to save themselves, would migrate to Luke's body, and the senior personality would overwhelm the junior, although in the case of Luke, who had been alive on his own for years, the process could possibly take weeks.

The more he examined the two of them the more it looked like Dist was right: it was inevitable. Although he'd at least done Asch the mercy of not telling him about it.

The immortality he'd wanted for Professor Nebilim existed.

Sometimes, Jade Balfour really, really wished that he had been drowned at birth.

-

"Tear, I didn't want you to know the truth of the Planet Score, but if you insist." Van handed over one of two fonstone pieces.

When she finished reading the first all the blood had drained from her face and she stared at him in horror.

"That was why I wanted to keep this from you."

She shook her head, eyes unseeing as she contemplated the horrific fates, past and present, promised by the score. "I understand. I'm sorry I doubted you, Vandesdelca, I'm so sorry."

"Must you read the other one?"

"There's more? Worse than this?" No, her eyes pleaded, but his own dashed her hopes. "Show me. I'm Yulia's descendant too. I won't let you have to suffer all this alone, not anymore."

When she finished she collapsed to the ground. "Everyone… everyone… Everyone's going to die. Nothing left… This is the Planet's Score of Death."

He knelt, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her until she looked up at him, face still despairing. "It doesn't have to be, Mystearica. That was why Luke was written into the Score. The one who would inherit Lorelei's power. A power equal to that which created the Score. Lorelei is weak, trapped in the core. We can win, Mystearica. We can defeat Lorelei. We can replace this corrupt world, addicted to the poison of the Score, with one where there is hope, Mystearica. We can fulfill Yulia's wish for a future for humanity."

"Lorelei's crying, Van, Lorelei's crying, I can hear it in that Score. How could anyone read those passages and believe that this is what's meant to be? Either everyone will die and the world will end or everyone will die so there can be a new world… It's so horrible. I wish there was another way." She hugged him, his little sister clinging to him for comfort that he gave willingly. "Using Lorelei's own child to destroy everything Lorelei and Yulia hoped to preserve… How could Mohs? How could they? How could Grandfather let you be used like that?"

"The Score is a drug," Van said again, old pain rising to the surface.

"You, Major Legretta's brother, Hod, Akzeriuth… Two thousand years. And it's… It can't have been for nothing. I won't let it!" There, there was her fierceness.


	6. How can this be?

_And the final chapter. If you thought there was going to be a last-minute reprieve, you've been reading/watching/playing too many works with unrealistic happy endings._

_Ion, check; Sync, check, Jade semi-check. _

-

"He's…" Ion searched for a word, "family? Like me, and I want him near me, but he's not me. I think that if we weren't replicas of the fon master we might not even notice it. I've been around Sync before, of course, but he's never wanted anything to do with me. At least now I know why we feel that way." Ion smiled, despite everything. "At least one of them survived."

Sync was supposedly on a mission to retrieve a mask for Asch from the person who made his. In fact, Van had ordered one ages ago and left it with Sync. Giving Asch an obviously theatrical blood-red dye job over a really good brown dye job would take care of the rest. He was here to observe the proceedings. Arietta had retreated in a huff, so Legretta was the one who was overtly here to act as Van's watchdog while Sync lurked in the shadows. He didn't know what Van was going to say about Asch sleeping with someone who had until so recently been the enemy. Sync was glad his 14-year-old body wasn't old enough yet to have serious hormones.

Any indications otherwise were blamed on Ion looking girly.

Ion? Was way, way too sweet. It was sickening how he let people use him. Were most replicas like that? He avoided the labs like crazy.

Ion and Luke were chatting like total damn innocents despite everything that they knew.

"It might just be that you're not perfect isofons." Luke sounded sorry for him. "It's… does it bother you? That Anise and Arietta... you know."

"Anise only knows me. Fon Master Ion usually kept to himself, so he wouldn't catch anything that could kill him since he was so weak already. And he didn't like people. Arietta… I can't replace my original, not for her, and replacing him is the only thing I'm for. If I couldn't do it they would have killed me like the others."

"Ion… that' s not the only thing you're for."

Ion still smiled when he told Luke that, "No, it's this or nothing. Mohs will have me killed if I start acting unlike Ion did when he was in public. It's probably inevitable, but I want to try to end this war and do the sort of things the Fon Master _should_ be doing while I'm alive."

…Damn. At least Sync got to act however he wanted. Maybe Ion wasn't spineless after all. Maybe he wasn't dumb enough to think that he was going to live. Sync had decided that he if he was doomed he was going to take the Score with him or die trying. Ion was going against the Score by trying to stop a war. He didn't get that the Score was the problem, but… Maybe he wasn't what Sync had thought he was.

"Van said that according to the Closed Score the war is going to happen anyway." What? That idiot Luke had blabbed that?!

"I sort of guessed, because Mohs is insisting on bringing it about." Ion still sighed, that it had been confirmed. "But I should be trying to stop it, so as long as I don't _knowingly_ go against it as far as he knows I'll be fine, probably. And at least I can try to make it end sooner, or… _something_." He smiled again. "And since I've met the colonel and Emperor Peony I'll be harder to replace. Jade doesn't know I'm a replica, but he would spot one trying to act like me."

"I don't know, Ion, you don't really act like yourself."

"I envy Sync sometimes. I can't let myself get angry and I've never cried. I think he might be stronger than me, but I learned to smile. So Mohs doesn't know what I'm thinking." Ion smiled again. "At least if I'm alive I can do something, even if it's not much."

"He has a mask, you smile." Luke clearly didn't like that they had to do that. "Asch is going to wear a mask when he comes with me to Baticul. I'm glad he'll come, but… I don't like that he has to hide who he is. He's the real Luke, even though he insists on Asch. But if people find out it's a lie now… I'll be glad when they think I'm dead and I can stay with him. He said he would help me get stronger and maybe I could fight beside him."

"At least Asch is a good person who cares about you. The original Ion wasn't very nice at all." Sync agreed with him there. "And Sync… If Mohs knew about him, he'd try to have him killed too. Mohs has other Ion replicas that… I can't do anything for them. Sync escaped, thanks to Van. Mohs won't like that. Sync won't talk to me but Luke, could you ask him to be careful? Well, I'm sure he's already being careful, so never mind. It's nice to know that he's been free for so long. It makes me think that maybe this escape will work, that I can do something too." Ion… Ion the success admired Sync? Sync the reject? Thought that Sync might be stronger, even? Hid behind a mask too?

He… they weren't the same person, but maybe they were more alike than he had thought. The thought was… both horrible, because if Ion was just an idiot than Sync didn't have to think about how it sucked to be him just as much as it did Sync, and… it strengthened him. Knowing that there was someone else like him. Someone else the Score had it in for. Another reason to kill Lorelei and survive.

Ion didn't think that Sync's life was useless and he'd gained nothing since he was born. Ion thought he was admirable. Ion wanted to be like him. Ion had been through so much that he had.

Ion_ understood_.

There wasn't freaky stuff with resonance and Lorelei, of all entities, involved here, thank whatever, but Sync though he understood how Asch felt, just a bit. No one else understood. Having someone that did was… was a good thing. You wanted to keep them around. Someone messing with them was like they were messing with you, and Sync didn't let people mess with him, not even Lorelei.

-

"You want to use this replica data they took from the inhabitants to restore Hod?" Jade looked first surprised, then thoughtful.

"According to the research Belkend has been doing it's possible."

"Well, there's nothing at the site Hod once was but uninhabited rubble. If these results are valid you could indeed use Asch and Luke's hyperresonances to convert that raw material into a replica of the island. It's a mammoth undertaking. I can't think of a project this vast in Auldrant's history." Except the sephiroth trees, but Jade didn't know about those. "Fomicry is a forbidden arte. I forbade it myself, as soon as Peony came to the throne and could enforce it. This wouldn't bring back the people killed by the research on Hod, but… The data exists. To let it go to waste, or worse, be used for nothing but to benefit those who killed for it…" Jade shook his head.

"I doubt Peony would possibly object. Van, Vandesdelca… I am a cold man, and although whatever suffering what I've done may have caused me is nothing compared to what fomicry has caused you to suffer, please believe me when I say that both I and Peony deeply regret that we could do nothing for Hod. In fact, it was our fault, because Peony showed my research to his father in order to justify my adoption into the Curtiss family so that I could have a position in Grand Chokmah. If the war can be averted then I am certain that he would do all in his power to assist you, and even if we can't prevent it then he can at least ensure that no one tries to interfere with it to gain replica soldiers or other such things for the war effort." Sending newborn children onto a battlefield…

"That would be greatly appreciated. I took over replica research as soon as I had the power because it would happen in any case and I wanted to do what I could. For one thing, I shudder to think what would have happened if Dist had been allowed to run around loose."

"I must agree with you there."

"Restoring Hod has always been a dream of mine. Do you think it actually could be made to work?"

"It _will_ be made to." And that was a promise. "I'll look over all of these files with Count Gardios and try to get you some preliminary conclusions before we dock at Baticul Port."

"Thank you."

"No. Thank you for giving me this opportunity."

"Dr. Balfour, replicas are mentioned nowhere in the Score. It's possible that as manifestation of the seventh fonon they are outside its reach, capable of doing things contrary to it. Mohs does not realize this, but Hod's restoration is written nowhere in the Score, so, like the peace effort, he is certain to oppose it."

"You're saying that the Score states war is inevitable."

"Hmm? Wherever did you get that idea? Even a Maestro who revealed such a thing, not that any Maestro ever would, would be executed for it."

"So then you're not saying it."

"And we never had this conversation."

"What conversation could you possibly not be talking about?" Returning to business, "Theoretically, I could understand why someone in your position would be interested in something that would strike back at what destroyed their home and family. Not that you haven't overcome your personal tragedies to be a true credit to the Order of Lorelei. How very admirable."

"Why thank you." Compliments from the necromancer were rare.

"On the matter of Luke and Asch… you said that their duality meant that they might not be doomed to die this year."

"Might. That you've verified the Big Bang theory worries me, as it means that one could die and yet still live. If only in memory, in Luke's case."

"The fact that they're Lorelei's isofons opens up another possibility. Lorelei's manifestation would be identical on the levels that matter to a replica of Asch. It could be possible to divert his consciousness to it instead of Luke in the event of his death. I'm sure that Lorelei can get itself another body." Not that Jade cared what happened to the mind of the Score.

"…Intriguing. Would you mind focusing on that instead of Hod? There is time to restore it: I've waited this long already. Asch might be doomed to die this year." Asch's time was running out, Eldrant's hadn't started yet.

"I'm already working on it." Jade looked to the side and Van turned to see what he was looking at. Luke and the masked Asch had come up on deck, soon followed by a laughing Gailardia and his little sister, who was smiling despite the sadness that had lingered in her eyes since she'd read that Score.

He hadn't wanted her to know, but for the first time in years they were a family again. He had a hard time regretting that.

"I almost have to thank whoever created him," Jade said out of the blue. "Or perhaps it is Yulia I should be thanking, for the first time in my life. The ability to make change. To atone, in whatever inadequate way… It was my creation that destroyed so many lives. But then, change is never easy. Mohs isn't the only one who would fight tooth and nail to keep the Score on track."

"He's merely the most vocal."

"Fon Master Ion's Reformist Faction already has his imperial majesty's support." And Jade's, not that those were separate matters.

"I am sure he appreciates it." The true Fon Master Ion wouldn't have approved of his replacement's efforts to save the lives of the trash that followed the Score. And yet, Sync was right. Ion had gone to Malkuth suspecting that the war was ordained by the Score. Just as his original had been both the Score's prophet and the one who hated it even more viciously than Van (a Fon Master was more deeply buried in it than Van ever would be), Ion had also been doing what he could to undermine it.

If he'd told Gailardia the truth, if he'd told Tear, if he'd told Ion… He'd been so certain they would oppose him. He'd created Luke to die, invested all his anger in him and yet when Luke found out the truth he loved him all the more for it. The distances that had sprung up between him, his lord, and his sister were gone now.

He couldn't relax yet, and his worst crimes were still ahead of him, but for the first time he had real hope that something could be salvaged from the wreckage of Auldrant, that he might be worthy to live on with those he loved in the promised land he had thrown away his honor to bring about.

-

Afterword: Tales of the Abyss is a story about doom. Playing thought it again and catching more of the dramatic irony makes me realize how very close it was.

If Van had let the truth come to light before Akzeriuth, Guy, Tear, and Luke could very likely have been made to, gradually, buy into Eldrant. After Akzeriuth, he'd lost their trust and they knew that he had been willing to throw them away. Van betrayed them, and that was the real reason they didn't join him. Before Akzeriuth, they loved him, and that could have been used to cover a magnitude of faults. Despite everything, he was their teacher/brother/childhood friend, even right up to the end. But he was also the one who betrayed the love they'd given him and used their trust in him to destroy thousands of lives.

Asch has this rant at one point about how he believed in Van, he would have done anything for him, and if only Van hadn't had this stupid idea about replacing everyone with replicas, of all things he would have been fine with it and gotten to be Van's right hand.

Asch's hatred of replicas in general, stemming from his hatred of Luke, is the ONLY reason Asch turned against Van. Asch sees Van as his one 'real' parental figure (as does Luke) and Asch also has Stockholm Syndrome like crazy. Even to the end, his big fight with Luke is all about who Van's real student is and hence who Van loves more: Asch, or the replicas Asch hates.

In other words, if Van had brought the vulnerable Luke over to his side and reconciled Luke and Asch, Asch would have worked for Van. And forget dealing with the Yulian seals and getting miasma poisoning, forget hacking the sephiroth to force them out of control. Asch can destroy a passage ring in_ seconds_ if Luke can. Having Asch on his side would have let Van drop the outer lands, oh, before the point in the timeline where Luke came up from Yulia City in the actual game. Grab Ion, fly from one to the next on those birds, and everything's dissolved into the miasma except the Absorption and Radiation Gates.

So… Van told the original Fon Master Ion, so why not Mystearica and Gailardia?

When you come down to it, the issues that made Van do all this (what happened to Hod) are the reason he doesn't win.

Of course, since I can't wave a magic wand and make those issues go away (I mean, if he got some therapy about it there goes the whole plot), and it would take something _major _for Asch to realize that Luke's not all that bad, I had to play around with the perfect isofon thing to cause this to happen.

The point is that if it did happen Auldrant is so, so utterly doomed.


End file.
